What was gods religion

They lack sufficient causes, and thus aren't determined either by antecedent natural conditions or by God's decrees. If they aren't, God can't know them in knowing his decrees.

So, in this case at least, God's knowledge appears to depend upon its object. But if it does, God cannot be impassible. It should be noted that this difficulty can't be evaded by appealing to the doctrine of middle knowledge. The second and more pressing problem for the doctrine of divine impassibility, however, is this.

All theists describe God as compassionate. God isn't aloof or unmoved by our distress but shares our griefs as we share those of people we love. His joy is thus tempered by sympathetic sorrow. The degree and quality of God's happiness is partly determined by the state of sentient creatures. Charles Hartshorne, for instance, has argued that while certain forms of independence are admirable others are not.

Hartshorne: 43—44 Human sympathies are necessarily limited, of course. But a perfect being would be maximally responsive to the joys and sufferings of other. If it is, it could not be impassible. Classical Christian theology provides several attempts to reconcile God's compassion with his impassibility. Thus, Anselm argued that while God acts as if he were compassionate, he does not experience compassion. Therefore you are both merciful because You save the sorrowful and pardon sinners against You; and You are not merciful because You do not experience any feeling of compassion for misery.

A recognition of this may have led Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas to offer their own, rather different, solutions. Bernard claimed that while God neither suffers nor experiences compassion in his own nature, he does suffer and experience compassion in the human nature that he assumes at the Incarnation. Bernard's solution is superior to Anselm's because it implicitly recognizes that compassion necessarily includes feeling or emotion.

It isn't available to non-Christian theists, however, and fails to locate compassion in the divine nature itself. Thomas Aquinas's solution does so. Some emotions can be literally albeit analogically ascribed to God. Love and joy are examples. Other emotions such as anger and sorrow cannot.

As such they can be literally ascribed to God although the mode in which God experiences them differs from that in which we do so. God's love and joy are purely active emotions, qualifications of his will. Our love and joy, on the other hand, are both actions and passions, partly voluntary and partly involuntary reactions of our animal nature. Anger and sorrow can be appropriate, and hence good-making, qualities of the person who experiences them.

But they are not pure perfections because they entail perturbation and suffering. They cannot, then, be literally ascribed to God. Even so, compassionate sorrow differs from anger. When God acts as a justifiably angry person would we can ascribe anger to God metaphorically.

But nothing in God no internal modification of God corresponds to the feeling or emotion of anger in us. While Aquinas's solution is superior to those of Anselm and Bernard, it does have problems.

Aquinas's distinction between anger and compassion may be specious, since it seems that both could be treated in the same way. Since God's righteousness or love of justice is a pure perfection we can ascribe it to God literally. God's anger can then be interpreted as the way God's righteousness is apprehended by those who have rejected him or recognize that he has been rejected. God not only acts as a justifiably angry person would act, those acts are the expression of an internal modification namely, his love of justice which is a real property of God's own being.

A more important problem, though, may be the fact that the emotion or feeling state which grounds God's acts of compassion, according to Aquinas, isn't literally tinged with sorrow. The most important point in the present connection, however, is this. The debate between modern theists like Hartshorne, on the one hand, and classical theists like Aquinas, on the other, revolves around the following question: Can a maximally perfect being be touched by suffering?

Hartshorne thinks it must since a maximally perfect being would be maximally responsive to the joys and sorrows of others, and would therefore grieve with all who grieve.

Our second example of how a dispute over what constitutes maximal greatness can affect one's concept of God is furnished by a disagreement between the great Vishishtadvaitin, Ramanuja, and the founder of the Dvaita school of Vedanta, Madhva — Vishishtadvaita maintains that God is related to the world as the soul jivatman is related to its body.

They can neither exist nor act apart from them, and they can only be understood in relation to them. The point of saying that bodies are related to souls as accessory to principal is that bodies are also evaluatively dependent on their souls—they have no worth apart from their relation to them. To say that the world is God's body, then, is to say that God is the world's support, controller, and principal. Just as bodies are absolutely dependent on their souls, so the world is absolutely dependent on God.

And, in fact, the dependence in the latter case is even more complete than it is in the former. For souls need bodies to accomplish their purposes whereas God does not need the world.

The world's dependence on God, on the other hand, is complete. The upshot is that the body-soul relation is only fully exemplified by the world-God relation. The world is absolutely dependent on God; God in no way depends upon it. It is worth noting that classical western theism's principal objections to the claim that the world is God's body—that it makes God dependent on the world and subject to its imperfections—aren't relevant to Ramanuja's position.

For, in the latter's view, not only does the dependence relation run only one way [from body to soul and not vice versa], but the body's defects do not affect the soul. Ramanuja and Madhva were both theists, both Vedantins, and both Vaishnavas that is, both identified God with Vishnu , sharing a common allegiance to the same set of scriptures and engaging in similar religious practices.

Yet in spite of these similarities, the flavor of their views is quite different. Inconsistency with the divine majesty is itself the criterion of what is unworthy of acceptance. For example, while Ramanuja has a very strong doctrine of grace, he appears to allow some room for libertarian free will.

Madhva does not. Because of the eternal difference in their qualities and potentialities, souls have different destinies. Thus Dvaita is one of the few Hindu schools with something like a doctrine of eternal damnation. Some souls are permanently bound to this world with its endless cycle of births and rebirths.

It should be noted that Madhva's view was modified by some of his followers. Thus Vyasa Raya [—] insisted that because innate aptitudes for good or for evil are beginningless, they are not caused by God. Madhva's most striking departure from Ramanuja, however, is his absolute rejection of the notion that the world is God's body.

In Madhva's opinion, the Vishishtadvaitin view compromises God's transcendence and independence. The relation between God and the world isn't a relation between a soul and its body but between a sovereign will and its effect. God's being and activity explain why spatio-temporal things have the properties they do but doesn't explain why they exist in the first place.

Ramanuja, by contrast, thinks that it does. Because bodies depend upon souls for their existence, and the world is God's body, the world depends upon God for its being as well as for its qualities. The world's dependence upon God is thus more complete in Ramanuja's theology than it is in Madhva's. Why, in particular, does Madhva adopt a position which seems inconsistent with his emphasis on God's absolute sovereignty? The answer appears to Madhva's equally emphatic insistence on God's transcendence and independence.

The substratum is the cause of a thing's being or existence; the process of shaping or forming is the cause of its being a particular kind of being or existent, that is, of its having one set of qualities rather than another. Thus, the potter's activity causes the clay to be a pot ; but the clay gives the pot its being or existence. If God were the cause of the existence of the world as well as the cause of its qualities that is, if he were its material as well as its efficient cause , then God would be the world's substratum.

As he in a sense is for Ramanuja. Prakriti is the world's substratum, and prakriti, according to Ramanuja, is an aspect of God's body. But this is inconsistent with God's transcendence and independence of the world. If God is truly perfect, then, he cannot be the cause of the world's existence. This example is particularly instructive because it illustrates how an emphasis on different aspects of God's perfection the absolute dependence of everything other than God on God, on the one hand, and God's transcendence and independence, on the other can cause theologians with otherwise quite similar views to draw very different conclusions about God.

Are limited deities counter examples to this entry's claim that religious consciousness tends to construe ultimate reality as maximally perfect? Most apparent counter examples are merely apparent. The limited deity is either not thought to be ultimate or it isn't really believed to be limited that is, less perfect than a being could possibly be.

The following two examples illustrate these possibilities. Being perfectly good, the demiurge wishes to communicate his own goodness. Using the Forms as a model, he shapes the initial chaos into the best possible image of these eternal and immutable archetypes. The visible world is the result.

The demiurge is the highest god and the best of causes. He is nonetheless limited. For the material he shapes isn't created by him and, because it is disorderly and indeterminate, partially resists his ordering. The demiurge is not ultimate, however, since his ontological and axiological status is lower than that of the Forms, especially the Form of the Good.

Plato's concept of the demiurge thus isn't a counter example to the thesis that religious consciousness tends to construe ultimate reality as maximally perfect. The God of process philosophy illustrates the second possibility. While differences among process philosophers make generalizations difficult, its critics accuse its God of being a mere demiurge, one power among others who, while influencing everything, controls nothing.

Whether God, rather than the process of becoming of which God is a part, is ultimate in this system is a moot point. More important for our purposes, however, is the fact that the God of the most theologically interesting process philosopher is thought to be maximally perfect. Most Buddhists believe a person has countless rebirths, which inevitably include suffering.

A Buddhist seeks to end these rebirths. Buddhists believe it is a person's cravings, aversion and delusion that cause these rebirths. Therefore, the goal of a Buddhist is to purify one's heart and to let go of all yearnings toward sensual desires and the attachment to oneself. Buddhists follow a list of religious principles and adhere to personal restraint, fasting and very dedicated meditation. When a Buddhist meditates it is not the same as praying or focusing on a god, it is more of a self-discipline.

Through practiced meditation a person may reach Nirvana -- "the blowing out" of the flame of desire. Buddhism provides something that is true of most major religions: disciplines, values and directives that a person may want to live by. Muslims believe there is the one almighty God, named Allah, who is infinitely superior to and transcendent from humankind. Allah is viewed as the creator of the universe and the source of all good and all evil.

Everything that happens is Allah's will. He is a powerful and strict judge, who will be merciful toward followers depending on the sufficiency of their life's good works and religious devotion. A follower's relationship with Allah is as a servant to Allah. Though a Muslim honors several prophets, Muhammad is considered the last prophet and his words and lifestyle are that person's authority.

To be a Muslim, one must follow five religious duties: 1. Repeat a creed about Allah and Muhammad; 2. Recite certain prayers in Arabic five times a day; 3. Give to the needy; 4. One month each year, fast from food, drink, sex and smoking from sunrise to sunset; 5. Pilgrimage once in one's lifetime to worship at a shrine in Mecca. At death -- based on one's faithfulness to these duties -- a Muslim hopes to enter Paradise. If not, they will be eternally punished in hell. For many people, Islam matches their expectations about religion and deity.

Islam teaches that there is one supreme deity, who is worshiped through good deeds and disciplined religious rituals. After death a person is rewarded or punished according to their religious devotion. Christians believe in one eternal God who is creator of all that is.

He is viewed as a loving God who offers everyone a personal relationship with himself now in this life. In his life on Earth, Jesus Christ did not identify himself as a prophet pointing to God or as a teacher of enlightenment.

Rather, Jesus claimed to be God in human form. He performed miracles, forgave people of their sin and said that anyone who believed in him would have eternal life. Followers of Jesus regard the Bible as God's written message to humankind. In addition to being an historical record of Jesus' life and miracles, the Bible reveals his personality, his love and truth, and how one can know and relate to God, as you could a friend.

Christians believe that all people sin, including themselves. They see Jesus as their Savior, as the Messiah who was prophesied by all the prophets of the Old Testament, in the Bible. They believe that Jesus Christ, out of love for us, paid for the sin for all of humanity by dying on a cross. Three days later, he rose from the dead as he promised, proving his deity. Are all religions worshiping the same God? Let's consider that.

New Age Spirituality teaches that everyone should come to center on a cosmic consciousness, but it would require Islam to give up their one God, Hinduism to give up their numerous gods, and Buddhism to establish that there is a God.

Most of the world religions place an individual on their own, striving for spiritual perfection. In Hinduism a person is on their own trying to gain release from karma. In New Age a person is working at their own divinity. In the Asia-Pacific region, face-to-face surveys were conducted in India, Indonesia and the Philippines, while phone surveys were administered in Australia, Japan and South Korea. Here are the questions used for the report, along with responses, and the survey methodology.

What is the connection between belief in God and morality? Pew Research Center posed these questions to 38, people in 34 countries in But there are large regional variations in answers to this question. People in the emerging economies included in this survey tend to be more religious and more likely to consider religion to be important in their lives, and they are also more likely than people in this survey who live in advanced economies to say that belief in God is necessary to be moral.

Differences occur within countries as well. In general, people who are relatively nonreligious are more inclined than highly religious people in the same countries to say it is not necessary to believe in God to be a moral person.

Since , the share of people who say God is important to them has increased in Russia and Ukraine, while the opposite has occurred over the same time span in Western Europe. Prior research establishes the European continent as increasingly secular on the whole, though among Europeans, there are notable differences between Eastern and Western countries in attitudes toward religion and religious minorities.

Less than half in both Canada and the U. For more on religion in the U. Additionally, strong majorities in each of the sub-Saharan African nations surveyed say belief in God is necessary to be moral.

Catholicism remains the largest religion in Latin America, and majorities of Catholics in all three nations surveyed think it is necessary to believe in God to be moral. Strikingly, both Russia and Ukraine have seen an evolution of opinion on this question, but in opposite directions. Russia has seen an 11 percentage point increase since in the share who say belief in God is necessary to have good values, while Ukraine has seen an point drop.

Aside from Russia, only two other countries — Bulgaria and Japan — have seen significant increases in the share of their publics who hold this opinion 17 points and 10 points, respectively.

In addition to Ukraine, four other countries — Mexico, Turkey, South Korea and the United States — have seen significant decreases in the percentage of their publics who say belief in God is necessary to be moral. Overall, respondents in nations with lower gross domestic product are more likely to say that belief in God is necessary to be moral and have good values.

In other words, there is an inverse relationship between GDP per capita and the percentage of the public that draws this connection between belief in God and morality. Statistical analysis shows a strong inverse correlation, with a coefficient of This pattern is consistent with prior research that has found that Europeans tend to be less religious than people in many other parts of the world.

On an individual basis, those who earn at or above the median income threshold in most nations are significantly less likely to say that belief in God is necessary for morality. The largest difference between those at different income levels is in the U. Most countries surveyed display generational gaps on the question of whether belief in God is necessary in order to be moral and have good values.

In keeping with past analyses that found younger adults are generally less religious by several measures, to year-olds are the least likely to say it is necessary to believe in God to be moral. In a majority of the 34 countries surveyed, those ages 50 and older are significantly more likely than those ages 18 to 29 to think that belief in God is necessary for morality.